Film: Theyre playing his toons

Hes known as the man who drew Woody, but Bud Luckeys new love is a great short called Boundin, says Jeff Dawson

I started thinking about the most pathetic character I had seen,” muses the veteran animator (and splendidly named) Bud Luckey, recalling his youth in America’s Wild West. “It was a sheep after it had been sheared, standing in the rain. He originally had a big, woolly coat that he was proud of, and now he’d lost it.”

Thus was created the jumping-off point for Boundin’, a computer-animated short that many of you will have seen as the warm-up act for Pixar’s latest feature, The Incredibles. If you need another reason to see The Incredibles, which you shouldn’t, Boundin’ is it. A folksy western number, set to a cowboy ditty penned by Luckey, it tells the story of a poor, denuded mutton (quite a dancer, it turns out) who is unable to wow his fellow critters once his bountiful fleece has been shorn — until salvation comes in the form of advice